more than 8 semesters

<p>I've posted about this before and have gotten a lot mixed responses. This question is a little different.
In general, from what I've read elsewhere online, the consensus is that doing an extra semester as an undergrad is a vulnerability for your law school application.
It's always said that if you can justify it by your particular course-work then it is acceptable but if you're taking an extra semester yet still earning only one major that it's surely a negative.
My question is what exactly would justify an extra semester. Earning a minor? 2 minors? a double major?
From what I understand, the a GPA seems more valuable if it was earned within the accepted normal time period of 8 semesters and if it was done so given normal sized course loads as opposed to another situation what would give an unfair advantage. like perhaps:
spreading courses over 9 semesters
AND/OR taking a part time semester to focus on only a couple classes at once
OR taking an extra semester to pad the GPA</p>

<p>That being said, if a part time semester is such negative, how would that differ from summer classes
Often times summer school is seen as an easier way to take classes since you take no<br>
more than 1 or 2 classes at a time.
If a student took 5 or 6 summer classes over 4 years I would think that would be
relevant to admissions committee when evaluating the strength of a students GPA</p>

<p>-Maybe I'm wrong about the summer school. Does anyone know how that might work?
-And what exactly is seen as an acceptable justification for an extra semester? Like I said, I sometimes hear your fine as long as you don't take 11 years to graduate and other sources stress the importance of a normal 8 semester route to graduation.</p>

<p>Not sure where you have heard most of the misinformation you are talking about. That you complete college in 4 1/2 rather than 4 years generally makes no diifference to admission. That your transcript might obviously show that you took an extra semester of easy courses just to pad your grades might have some impact since they look at your college record as a whole.</p>

<p>-what about 5 years? does that hurt? I swear I’ve heard this in various places.
-Also you say 4.5 years “generally” doesn’t hurt. I mean why the hesitance? Does it have the potential to? because, if so, then that’s the whole issue.
-Maybe they say it doesn’t hurt, but it MUST look better if you can finish one major in a shorter period of time; or if you can get the same GPA as another guy without having to take an extra semester to off-set your bad one during your freshman year.
-Anyone know?</p>

<p>anyone know?</p>

<p>for example what if you had a part time semester and got 3 A’s. The GPA of that person has got to seem less impressive than the person who took 15 hours every semester…</p>

<p>^bball101- I have no evidence to support this claim, but I really don’t think most admission committees are looking at your application that rigorously. In the event that they are analyzing it past your LSAT and GPA, I don’t think the fact that you took 3 classes instead of 4 as any deterrent/</p>